What Mistakes?

Ramona here, and this is one of my favorite pictures of me…a lot of memories crammed into one small square. It was taken by a good friend, Nancy, on the Isle of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast. I had been doing research for my first three Love Inspired Suspense books (they’re set in NH), and Nancy patiently squired me around as I took photos, tamped through the woods, and asked a million questions.

So the photo holds friendship, dreams, a fabulous trip . . . and a mistake.

Because this photo almost didn’t come to be. See the light spots at the bottom – this happened because I forgot I had film in the camera and opened it before I’d rewound the roll. I lost a lot of good shots with that mistake, but this one was deep enough in the roll that it only got a little extra exposure.

It was a mistake I never repeated with an SLR. I’ve switched to digital, but shots like this remind me that mistakes can still happen anytime, anywhere.

And that’s OK. We’re human, some days more than others. We make mistakes, even when we know better. But we can learn and grow from them, just as I never again opened an SLR without checking to see if the film had been rewound.

I also never hike without taking certain safeguards (after a broken ankle), scuba dive after partying too much (hypothermia), start a motorcycle I’ve never ridden before (there used to be a bush in that spot over there), or rock climb in a cast (don’t ask). I knew better – I just didn’t follow the instructions.

I know God has a sense of humor; He has to, watching us stumble around. After all, He gave us perfectly good instructions, which we often ignore. Thankfully, our Abba, Daddy, also gave us a way out. To learn, to grow, to Do Over.

Now, if we just keep that in mind while we’re making our mistakes…